The Honorable Marie N. Milks recently retired from the Judiciary after twenty-four years of service from 1980 to 2004. She served two 10-year terms as a Circuit Court Judge. During her tenure as a District Court and Circuit Court Judge, Judge Milks presided over both civil and criminal matters and handled several hundred jury and jury-waived trials. Assignments in the Civil Division involved a range of subject matters – personal injury, construction, legal and medical malpractice, insurance, real estate, commercial and employment issues. Judge Milks handled well over one thousand settlement conferences over four rotations as settlement judge.

Prior to her appointment to the bench, Judge Milks was a research assistant at the U.S. Department of Justice in 1972. From 1973 to 1980, she was a Deputy Public Defender at both the trial and appellate levels and served as the Acting Public Defender for the State of Hawaii.

Judge Milks is on the faculty of the National Judicial College and the National Institute for Trial Advocacy, a bencher with the Aloha Inn of Court, a member of the American Judicature Society and participates in many community organizations, such as the Girl Scout Council of Hawaii, Make a Wish Foundation, and Special Olympics.

Judge Milks was born and raised in Honolulu. She graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1962 and the University of Hawaii in January 1966 – including a summer fellowship at Columbia University in New York, and election to Phi Beta Kappa. While employed as a legislative aide for U.S. Representative Patsy T. Mink in Washington D.C., she began her studies in the Evening Division of Georgetown University Law Center, and was awarded a J.D. in February 1972.